While it prepares students for the future, NIFT also teaches them to value and nurture our traditional past.

It is 8.45 am on a Wednesday morning. A group of students dressed smartly in jeans, tops and shirts start filtering inside the sprawling campus of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in the Hauz Khas area of New Delhi. There is still some time to go for their classes, about half an hour, and so these young boys and girls are sitting out in the open--on the steps of the amphitheatre--busy exchanging notes, ideas and their thoughts on how to make different the ensembles they have been assigned to work on. That's almost an everyday scenario at the NIFT campus-a concrete and glass structure-where the creative energy permeates the very air.

Established in 1986 under the aegis of the Union ministry for textiles in technical collaboration with the State University of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, NIFT today has emerged as a foremost icon in fashion education, working towards integrating knowledge, academic freedom, critical independence and creative thinking and imparting it to students from across the country and outside who come to the institute to study fashion design. While NIFT has set up 15 professionally managed campuses across India, its flagship campus in Delhi boasts the highest strength of students enrolled in about 10 full-time and eight evening programmes. Also on offer is a bridge programme that was started in 2009 to enable its alumni to upgrade their diplomas to degrees at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

NIFT Delhi has been alma mater to some of the biggest names in the fashion design industry. From J.J. Valaya and Ritu Beri to Rohit Bal, Manish Arora, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Sabyasachi Mukherjee, NIFT has given the fashion industry its very best. According to Professor Vandana Narang, campus director, "NIFT Delhi is different from our other campuses as we have a strong faculty, industry and global connect. Fashion education has evolved to keep pace with the changing times. It has evolved rapidly both in content and pedagogy, with technology being the driver. Classrooms have become global and collaborative with faculty members and students working together on the challenges that the fashion industry faces."

The institute offers a number of four-year bachelor programmes such as accessory design, fashion communication, fashion design, knitwear design, leather design, apparel production and textile design. Besides, it also has postgraduate courses, in design, fashion management and fashion technology. Beginning from this year in July, the institute is all set to introduce a new, revamped curriculum, with a strong focus on the overall development of students and equipping them with the skill sets required to face real-world challenges once they graduate from the institute.

The resource centre at the institute is known to have the best collection of fashion information sources that are on a par with international standards.

An important characteristic of the NIFT curriculum all these years has been the stress on eclectic learning, incorporating international trends and preserving indigenous traditions through the Craft Cluster Initiative, which exposes students to the multiple craft traditions of India. In fact, in 2014-15, a total of 265 students visited craft clusters around the country and worked in very close partnerships with master craftsmen.

That this initiative offers students first-hand knowledge and insight into how things actually work, and how they can use this experience in their day-to-day learning is quite evident in the fashion design department class on the second floor of the NIFT campus. Chock-a-block with mannequins, Zuki sewing machines, tables for cutting and drafting and workstations, it is in these rooms that the real action takes place. It is in these light-filled, spacious labs where future designers get their hands dirty working on the minutest of details, learning how to make patterns, draft, cut, sew, embellish and give the final touches to outfits assigned to them as part of their curriculum projects. As Nayanika Thakur Mehta, Centre Coordinator, Fashion Design, NIFT Delhi, explains, "Every student gets one machine to work on and we ensure that the infrastructure supports their needs. Pattern making, draping, sewing and stitching are all done by these students themselves and they are evaluated on these factors very strictly."

It is this focused, stringent and participatory way of imparting knowledge to students that ends up making the institute a 'home away from home' for these budding designers. At any given point in time, brainstorming and ideating in the classrooms, in the work labs, in the canteen, and in the hostel rooms is more a norm than an exception. Pramila Uttam, a final semester fashion design student at NIFT Delhi, says, "The institute has changed me a lot. It has taught me to notice small things in a different perspective. Like when I go to any brand store, I turn clothes inside out and look at the finished details such as pockets and sewing to get an idea about the quality of the product."

Echoing a similar sentiment, Aarnav Vijaywargi, who is also a final semester fashion design student, says, "Our knowledge, tastes and personalities are polished and refined while studying here. We evolve as individuals, our thought processes change, and we learn how to support others as well as how to handle others who are as strong and creative as we are. We develop a comfort level here not only with the peers but also with our teachers who teach us not just the curriculum but about life in general as well."

It is at the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi where these students first learn to dream, taste freedom of expression, give wings to their imagination and fly high into the future. It is the crucible in which their success is forged.

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